Next: , Previous: vnc_sec_password, Up: vnc_security


3.10.3 With x509 certificates

The QEMU VNC server also implements the VeNCrypt extension allowing use of TLS for encryption of the session, and x509 certificates for authentication. The use of x509 certificates is strongly recommended, because TLS on its own is susceptible to man-in-the-middle attacks. Basic x509 certificate support provides a secure session, but no authentication. This allows any client to connect, and provides an encrypted session.

qemu [...OPTIONS...] -vnc :1,tls,x509=/etc/pki/qemu -monitor stdio

In the above example /etc/pki/qemu should contain at least three files, ca-cert.pem, server-cert.pem and server-key.pem. Unprivileged users will want to use a private directory, for example $HOME/.pki/qemu. NB the server-key.pem file should be protected with file mode 0600 to only be readable by the user owning it.